We Shall See Visions
by Tayijo
Summary: Stiles can't get the blood out of his eyes.


Remember when Teen Wolf was actually good? When characters were consistent and plots were coherent and the writers weren't throwing in disconnected stuff all the time because they'd written themselves into a corner? Remember when we actually believed that we were going to get an openly bisexual main character? Well, way back in those ancient days, before the start of Season 3, I wrote my very first published fic. It's adorable. The title is from The Mountain Goats' 'Against Pollution.'

* * *

.

* * *

Stiles can't get the blood out of his eyes. Not literally- he'd been doused in the stuff, sticky and warm and rich smelling, in his hair, in his ears, plastering his shirt to his skin, but a couple of hours in the bathroom, shaking and muttering and scrubbing at himself until even the brown-black rings under his cuticles were gone, had gotten rid of the literal blood in his eyes.

No, the real problem is that even though the blood is gone he still sees it everywhere, like it somehow left a permanent stain on his retinas, a scar. So now when he looks down at his notebook full of English notes, he sees his own hands dripping with blood, and when he looks across the classroom he sees Lydia and Allison sitting together, and they're soaked in blood too, smears on their cheeks like war paint. When Lydia smiles at him, he sees blood on her teeth.

It's worse when he's alone. He doesn't sleep anymore, not until his body forces him to, because when he closes his eyes, he can see Peter's gaping throat, the red ragged slice of it, and then he can see the blood bubbling up over his fingers. The tail end of the arterial spray was surprisingly gentle, like a freshwater spring flowing over stones. And then Lydia is beside him with a hard set to her jaw, sawing Peter's dead body into pieces, and Allison is helping dismember him, because this time. This time he's going to stay dead.

He doesn't dream so much about the aftermath, about the salt and the wolfsbane and the bloody bundles on the pyre. Sometimes he dreams about it from a different perspective. Sometimes he's Peter, looking up into his own bloody face. Sometimes he's still alive when they tear him apart.

* * *

When a beta werewolf kills an alpha werewolf, the beta acquires the alpha's power, becoming an alpha himself. Just one more tidbit of knowledge to tuck away in the mental file Stiles keeps under the heading 'The Big Bad Wolf: Everything There Is To Know About Werewolves.' Knowing things is important when you're a questionably athletic, verifiably breakable teenaged human who runs around with an assortment of supernatural bumps-in-the-night, and he's always happy to learn more about pack dynamics or anything really. This particular piece of information isn't really one of the ones that jumps out at him as either useful or problematic, not like some of the things he's read in the books Deaton keeps locked in his office.

Or at least, it doesn't jump out at him until an entire pack of alphas decides to come poking around Beacon Hills' recently unstable pack, and discovers that the Hale territory is the perfect place to really get enthusiastic about their vendetta against the Argents. They figure they can pin any inconvenient human deaths on the volatile, inexperienced Hale alpha while decimating the Argent house, and then trip off into the moonlight when they're done, wash their hands of the whole thing.

This, clearly, is a nightmare of epic fucking proportions, and not just for all the obvious reasons. When the Alpha pack rolls into Beacon Hills and meets the Argents and the Hale pack like a multi-vehicle pileup, there is blood and thunder, pain and fire, and the dead bodies keep stacking up: Erica, Chris Argent, half a dozen of Argent's hunters, a handful of innocent bystanders and, finally, the Alphas, down to the last wolf. But that isn't the end to the bloodshed, because somehow Peter gets his claws into one of the dying Alphas, and when his eyes glow red again it becomes clear that his death and resurrection haven't done much for his personality, have only made him subtler in his madness. He's still the same power-starved liar with no compunctions about giving ignorant, innocent people the bite and then leaving them to deal with it-or not.

When his first and third victims die of it, and Derek isn't able-can't bring himself, Stiles suspects-to beat Peter into submission in a fair fight, in fact is almost torn in half trying, Stiles goes to Deaton. Deaton gives him the materials, and Lydia helps him design the trap, and Allison helps him set it. Derek lures Peter in, and when it almost goes sideways the rest of the wolves-Boyd and Isaac and Scott and Rachel, Peter's second victim-batter away at him until Stiles can trap him behind the ash line.  
So its a group effort, yeah. But it's Stiles who made the wolfsbane-infused net that kept Peter from turning, and Stiles who throws it over him. It's Stiles' hands that hold the so-ironically-named wolf's claw, the rune-inscribed weapon with three razor sharp blades, and it's Stiles' elbows and wrists and fingers that slash and cut and, in the very end, while Allison holds him impaled on her spear, it's Stiles who slices open Peter's throat and lets all the blood out.

* * *

It's the first real day of summer vacation, and nearly four weeks since Stiles learned firsthand what human organs smell like, and when he stumbles downstairs in an old Batman t-shirt and boxers, he doesn't have any plans beyond raiding the fridge for last night's pizza and flopping down in front of the television. He can't make himself play first person shooters anymore, the stench of blood catches in the back of his throat and makes him feel like he's going to hurl, but he could really go for some light-hearted TV. Cartoons, maybe.

He knows his dad is at work, so he's not bothering to keep quiet, singing Ke$sha's 'Fuck Him He's a DJ'-sue him, Danny was playing a remix while they were studying for finals and its been stuck in his head ever since-but when he turns the corner into the kitchen he just about chokes because Lydia is sitting at the table messing with her phone. His warbling "all night long he's got the beats…" trails off under her amused eyebrow lift.

"Ke$ha?" she asks, like the thing to do when you show up unannounced at someone's kitchen table at 11 am is critique their taste in music.

"Shut up," he responds grumpily, and turns and opens the fridge so he doesn't have to see phantom blood coating her bare arms up to the elbows.

"Not really a morning person, are you?" The question is obnoxious, but the usual Lydia venom is missing, so he just "mm"s at her and grabs the milk. Lydia doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry, so he pulls out the cold pizza too and slides into a chair across the table from her. He can eat while she fills him in on the latest crisis. That thought brings up flashing visions of torn muscle and stringy tendon, and _god_ if he never has to scrub blood out from under his fingernails again it will be _too soon_. And maybe he isn't all that hungry anymore, but he sighs, because he's skipped enough meals in the last month to know he really will regret it if he passes on the pizza, and forces himself to pick up a slice.

"Soooo, why are you here?" he prompts when Lydia doesn't seem like she's about to explain why their lives are in danger today. And then, because that sounded a little bit too grumpy even for a summer vacation morning, and this is Lydia after all, "Not that I'm not totally pleased to see your lovely face in my house. Unexpectedly. Because you never come here, ever."

"Wellll," she says, drawn out like she's happy to be saying it, totally unphased by his awkwardness. "Allison said that Scott said that it's your birthday next week."

"OK." Stiles is confused; his birthday is not, as far as he knows, a crisis.

"It's summer, we made it through sophomore year, there isn't anyone lurking in the shadows trying to kill us"-so maybe not a crisis at all then? "-and it's your birthday. We're having a party."

"Wait-" his brain is slowly cataloguing what Lydia's saying. "Scott and Allison are talking again?"

Lydia shrugs. "I guess? They had some kind of conversation, anyway. I think Allison apologized for, you know, consolidating her hold on the house of Argent by being a total bitch to him." She flips her hair impatiently. "Anyway, not the point. The point is that I need to know what kind of party you want."

Stiles wasn't planning on having any kind of party at all, but Lydia doesn't look like that's an answer she'll accept, so he just says, "I don't know. I usually just have dinner with my dad."

Lydia nods, like she'd known all along that he was a boring loser. "I was thinking pool party at my house on Saturday. Mom is going to Rome and Dad always stays with his girlfriend while she's gone, so we can be as loud as we want."

"Great." Stiles tries not to look like he'd rather fight a werewolf with his bare hands than have a massive party, where he'll have to try to look like a well-adjusted normal person, thrown for his birthday, but he can't stop the slump in his chair so he doesn't think he succeeds.

"Oh, don't look like a kicked puppy," Lydia scolds. "I'm not going to invite the whole school, I'm not an idiot, and I think we all would prefer something smaller. Obviously the pack is going to be there, so I was thinking just the humans who are in the know? Well, the ones that are birthday party material, not report-underage-drinking material."

"So, not Scott's mom, then," Stiles says.

"Exactly." The smile Lydia flashes him has no blood in it at all.

They settle on a guest list: all the wolves, plus Allison and Danny and, at Danny's discretion, Danny's boyfriend, and of course Lydia and Stiles themselves. Stiles tries to insist on a drinks menu that includes, at the worst, beer, since he knows the wolves can't get drunk and he doesn't really relish making a huge fool of himself in front of a bunch of sober werewolves, but Lydia just smiles and nods and then writes 'mixed drinks' on her list, so Stiles suspects that at some point he's going to end up doing vodka shots. Lydia's house comes complete with pool and sound system, and Lydia doesn't mention it but he's also not going to be surprised if there's a cake.  
It's only after Lydia leaves, a couple of hours and some old Futurama episodes later, that Stiles realizes that he just spent the morning with Lydia Martin in full take-charge party planning mode over _his birthday_ , which she seemed determined to make into some kind of enjoyable event. She'd laughed at his jokes, and he'd leaned on her shoulder as they sat next to each other on his couch, and not once did he flail himself half to death because he was afraid of getting caught imagining her naked. Huh. Maybe it was just relief that the whole last hour that she was there, he didn't see any blood at all.

* * *

Saturday is still a week away, so Stiles buckles down for some serious summer escapism. He reactivates his WoW account and dicks around leveling up a worgen warrior he names Sourwolf, because he's hilarious, and that takes up most of Monday, but by Tuesday afternoon he's bored, everything on Netflix is either uninteresting or too potentially bloody and traumatic for him to want to click on, Scott and Isaac are at Scott's house watching definitely bloody and traumatic horror movies, both Boyd and Rachel are at work, Danny's at his cousin's house, Lydia isn't answering his texts, and Allison, well. They may have shared certain bonding experiences, like killing an alpha werewolf and hacking him into bloody pieces, but they aren't really the kind of friends who just hang out on a boring summer afternoon. He's too solidly on Team Scott or something.

Out of options, Stiles checks the time, gets in his Jeep, and drives to the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic. Since it's just before three in the afternoon, the clinic is open. Dr. Deaton is occupied with a pregnant Golden Retriever, so Stiles just slips behind the counter and into Deaton's office, pulls a heavy leather bound book from Deaton's glass-fronted bookshelf, and settles in.

Every other time he's come here like this, it was looking for a solution to a very specific kind of problem-the face-eating kind-so he doesn't really blame Deaton for giving him concerned eyebrows an hour later when he steps into his office. Stiles replies with his best reassuring smile, but Deaton still closes the door firmly behind him, his shoulders visibly tense like he's getting ready to take a punch or something. Stiles tries not to take it personally.

"Stiles." Deaton's voice is perfectly calm, as always. "Always a pleasure to see you. Behind my desk. Reading…" he pauses, eyes the book in front of Stiles. "the Malleus Maleficarum. Interesting choice. Not relevant to any… current concerns, I trust?"

"Uh, no. No. No evil witches in Beacon Hills these days. That I know of. I mean, except for, you know, your associate the guidance counselor. Who was only, like, half-evil, and she's gone, anyway. Right? She's gone, right?"

Deaton sighs. "You know the Council recalled her to Toronto."

"Right." Stiles settles back into Deaton's office chair, feeling a little less flaily. "That's… good, then. No evil witches of any kind."

Deaton eyes him again. "You know you're free to borrow my books, Stiles. I just wasn't expecting you to take such an interest in my office. While I'm working."

"Um." Stiles shifts guiltily, realizes Deaton is probably asking for his desk back, and pops up out of the chair. "Right! Sorry." He pauses and looks anywhere in the room but at Deaton, feeling weirdly hesitant now that the man is in front of him. "Um. I've been practicing," he spits out. "Some of the stuff that I've read about. Boring stuff, mostly. I started with modifications on the ash barrier, to adjust who gets blocked out. Scott and I tried a finding spell, but it didn't work, I don't know why not. And I also failed to levitate a pencil, although it did, like, melt a little bit. That one looks way easier when Willow does it."

Deaton looks politely interested, maybe a little concerned, but doesn't interrupt him, so Stiles barrels on. "Anyway, I was thinking, you probably know exactly how to levitate things, things much larger than pencils even! And how to find Scott in the woods. And it's summer break so I'm not doing anything else, and it would be nice to start preparing before there's a massive crisis blowing up in our faces. For once." He looks hopefully at Deaton.

"Are you saying… you want lessons?" Deaton's voice betrays no trace of an opinion on the idea.

Stiles opens his mouth, ready to lay out his argument for why this is actually a good plan, but Deaton cuts him off. "Alright."

"Really?" Stiles knows it's utterly unattractive to stand around with your mouth open, but sometimes, like when you're totally and completely surprised, it's the only possible reaction.

Deaton sorts through a stack of medical files on his desk and pulls one out. "Really. You might not ever end up being particularly powerful, but, like they say, knowledge is power. And experimenting on your own is not safe, at all." He goes over to the bookshelf and pulls out a battered blue book that looks like it belongs in the $.99 bin at a used bookstore. "I have a surgery scheduled for-" he looks at his watch "-right now, so why don't you read this instead of that antique you're getting fingerprints all over."

He's out the door again before Stiles can splutter out a half-indignant, "Thanks."

* * *

The title of the blue book is one word: "Basics." By Thursday, Stiles knows how to fix his finding spell to make it work.

* * *

"… you would think Amazon would sell weeping ladies and bleeding hearts. I mean, they sell everything else, why not dried flowers? But they don't, so I'm probably going to have to drive into Sacramento. Deaton says there's a shop."

Stiles and Isaac are lounging on Derek's porch, watching Boyd and Rachel jump and tumble in the yard, Rachel's afro bouncing around and Boyd's arm muscles gleaming in a vaguely fascinating way. Scott is at work, Derek disappeared about three minutes after Stiles showed up at his house this morning, and technically Isaac is supposed to be helping to train Rachel. Boyd, however, is like a million times more patient and Isaac is a better conversationalist-or at least, more willing to put up with a conversation with Stiles. Besides, its hot out for June, and there's shade on the porch, and Isaac is a surprisingly delicate flower for all he's a werewolf.

"Why doesn't Deaton have all that stuff already?" Isaac asks, only half paying attention. Boyd is walking Rachel through extending her claws on just one hand without shifting her face at all, for surprise claw strikes, and Isaac winces as Boyd gets a wide bloody slice across his bare chest.

Stiles looks away from the dripping blood and shrugs. "I think he just doesn't want me burning through his whole stash practicing. Plus, I have to get some tools and stuff of my own, you can't always just use someone else's, like, materials. It affects the magic or something."

That catches Isaac's attention, and he grins. "Tools? You mean like a magic wand? Maple wood with a unicorn hair core? Wait-does that mean that Sacramento has its very own Diagon Alley?"

Stiles smacks his shoulder, lightly so as not to injure his hand. "I'm not coming home with an owl, don't worry."

Isaac smirks. "I kind of figured you were a toad type of guy anyway. Or a rat."

Out in the yard, Boyd swipes at Rachel's knees and she backflips out of the way, looking surprised at herself when she lands on her feet. Stiles can still see blood everywhere-dripping down the side of Isaac's face, staining his own fingernails black-but the sunlight bleaches it out a little, and maybe he's getting used to it or something because sitting here on Derek's porch on an early Saturday afternoon is just where he wants to be, and he's feeling pretty OK.

* * *

They get to Lydia's house earlier than instructed because Boyd and Rachel take off into the woods to practice tracking Derek or something, so he and Isaac bundle into his jeep, pick up Scott from work, and make it out to Lydia's around four. Stiles is a little worried that she'll be irritated at them for just showing up, but when she ushers them inside her echoing, empty house and Scott and Isaac wrestle for the remote to her giant television, he glances over at her and the smile on her face is one of the most genuine he's seen since Jackson left for boarding school in Boston.

The realization hits him like an anvil in an old cartoon: _she's glad to be part of the pack_. She wants to belong as much as any of them. He reels for a minute or two, but it makes sense once he thinks about it-being in the know about the supernatural is fucking lonely-so he stops worrying and starts poking around her kitchen like he belongs there. At first Lydia shoos him away, but then she reconsiders and sets him to work making 7 layer dip.

When he gets back from a quick run to the grocery store to get some extra ice, Allison has arrived, and she and Scott are just kind of staring at each other helplessly across the living room, so he retreats to the back yard and flops down in the sun on one of the pool chairs. After about five minutes, Lydia flops down next to him. "If you sit out here in that t-shirt, you're going to get some very unattractive tan lines."

Stiles can feel his mouth hanging open. "Are you telling me to take off my shirt?" he splutters, because maybe he doesn't really have much of a crush on her anymore but still. Lydia Martin just told him to take off his shirt.

She laughs at him. "Maybe I did. Are you going to do it?"

The sounds that come out of his mouth don't form any coherent words, but that's OK, because he doesn't know what words they'd be forming if they did. He gives up on talking for the time being and somehow wrestles his shirt off over his head. When he looks over at Lydia, she doesn't exactly look interested in seeing him shirtless, but she does look approving. Well, she actually looks… like she's planning something and all the pieces are falling into place. Which is vaguely terrifying.

He doesn't get a chance to try to worm an explanation out of her, though, because right about then Rachel chases Isaac through the back doors, laughing, and Boyd follows them more slowly with a beer in his hand and a grin on his face. Isaac ducks away from Rachel, turns on her, and throws her in the pool, splashing Stiles but somehow not Lydia because Isaac isn't stupid, so its probably a good thing Stiles took his shirt off anyway, now that he's half-soaked. He stands up, contemplating joining Rachel in the pool because really, its stinking hot out, and when he turns to glance inside the house there's Derek, standing in the doorway and staring at him.

His eyes are caught like a rabbit in a trap for a second, this weird tension stretching out between them. The only thing moving is the droplet of chlorinated water trailing down his chest, and there's been a layer of tension between the two of them ever since Stiles insisted on burning the last of the alpha pack alive, but this is different somehow. He doesn't know what this is. It's not unpleasant, not exactly, but it is strange.

It only lasts about a heartbeat and a half, though, before Derek is looking away from him, toward Isaac, and almost smiling as he asks, "So this is your contribution to Rachel's training?"

Isaac shrugs, and Derek's half smile gets almost wicked, and then Derek is throwing Isaac in the pool after Rachel and somehow Stiles is covered in splashing water yet again, while Lydia remains perfectly dry and laughing not three feet away.

* * *

Stiles is clued in that Danny has arrived about fifteen minutes later when the first few bars of Tegan and Sara's latest single drop into a deep dubstep thrum that pours through the windows and out onto the porch. He goes back inside, pulling his shirt back on because he doesn't want to be shirtless if everyone else is still fully dressed, and sees that Danny's presence has helped reduce the tension between Scott and Allison. They no longer look like they're on the edge of either fighting or screwing and are going to fall into each other once they decide which they're going to do. Instead, they're standing around the counter, eating chips and talking about music.

"No Michael?" Stiles asks Danny, sliding up next to him and into range of the dip, which is pretty delicious if he says so himself.

"Nah," Danny says. "It seemed weird to invite him to hang out with the pack when I haven't told him yet."

Stiles nods, because while he hasn't ever had a boyfriend-or a girlfriend for that matter-he can't imagine how difficult it would be to date somebody who didn't know about the existence of werewolves and were-lizards and witches and all the other monsters that have made their lives into a supernatural freak show. At what point, exactly, did you have that conversation? Stiles knows Derek has given Danny the same "dating outside the pack" speech that the wolves have all gotten one point or another, so Danny knows the drill: its technically up to him what to tell his significant other, but everybody's lives are in his hands so he better not spill the beans unless he's really sure about the guy. Stiles doesn't blame him for hesitating; Stiles' dad still doesn't know. He can't imagine telling someone unless he was going to, like, marry them. And maybe not even then; marriages end, but you can never un-know that monsters are real.

Stiles gets a particularly vivid flash of sticky scarlet coating his hands and arms up to the elbows. He closes his eyes against the sensation of warm blood dripping off his fingers and tries to re-focus on the conversation. It gets easier once the song changes and Danny and Allison start a friendly argument about whether its acceptable to listen to Ke$ha outside of a gay club. After a minute, Stiles even jumps in, on Danny's side because ever since he saw one of the drag queens at Jungle do a Ke$ha impersonation he's totally understood how someone could like her unironically. He's vigorously defending blatant drunken sluttiness set to music when Lydia comes up behind him.

"Ke$ha again, Stiles?" she asks, amused. "What is it with gay boys and Ke$ha, anyway? Even if you don't hate her music you should know its not that remarkable."

"Hey!" Danny protests. "it's the principle of the thing!"

"You know I'm not, like, all the way gay, right?" Stiles sputters at her. He told Scott he was bisexual months ago, and Danny obviously picked up on it without him saying anything, and since Scott knows the chances that this is news to Allison are pretty slim. But still. He didn't actually know that Lydia knew. "I'm only, like, 50% percent gay. Just, you know, an equal opportunity admirer of people. Not-" he looks at the salsa sliding off his chip mournfully "-that that's apparently widened the field enough to get anybody interested."

Lydia punches him on the shoulder, hard. "Cheer up, Stiles. I've got a feeling that this is going to be your year."

He perks up a little at her vote of confidence, because this is Lydia. She knows things. "Yeah? You think?"

"Definitely," Scott agrees, and Lydia organizes them into scooping up the snacks and then herds them all outside.

Out by the pool, Derek is sitting on a pool chair by himself, looking quiet but halfway to happy, which is the best Stiles has seen him since Erica was killed. Boyd is in the pool with Isaac and Rachel, and they're all wearing considerably less clothing than before, which Stiles appreciates. Its his birthday, he's allowed to appreciate a display of werewolf physique. And, hey, human physique-Lydia and Allison are stripping down too and joining the wolves in the water. Scott makes a face like, _why not_ , then he and Danny are shucking off their shirts, and Stiles joins them. He keeps his boxers on, unlike Boyd and Isaac and Scott, who all appear to be happy to be entirely naked, and he tries not to feel inadequate even if he is by far the palest and skinniest guy here. Well, Isaac gives him a run for his money on palest, but he's pretty sure Allison's biceps are bigger than his, so that's not much comfort.

He does manage to escape Boyd's attempt to wrestle him under the water, though, so that makes him feel better. By the time the sun is gone and the air is cooling, Stiles is starting to feel like this is actually, genuinely one of his better birthdays, and even the way the sunset glints like blood on everyone's wet bodies can't shake his contentment.

* * *

There are truly epic amounts of pizza devoured, because _no one_ eats pizza like a pack of teenage werewolves, and then suddenly there's a cake covered in candles. He's not sure where it appeared from, but he's pretty sure it wasn't in Lydia's kitchen earlier so maybe Danny brought it? Even so, Lydia is clearly the mastermind behind it, because it's a sheet cake decorated with a sweet-faced Red Riding Hood. She's holding an axe. Stiles barks out a startled laugh when he sees it.

 _If it was anyone else who made that joke_ , he thinks, but then he looks up and sees Allison hook her arm through Lydia's and both of them look this weird combination of grim and satisfied and pleased. Not many other people in the world know what its like to be a defenseless human with an alpha werewolf's blood on their hands, so he grins at them, all teeth, and blows out the candles. He's pretty sure the glow in the pit of his stomach is pride and happiness and pure fucking joy in being alive.

* * *

Stiles isn't expecting presents; he's honestly still a little surprised that everybody showed up to a party for him, even though he knows he should be used to it by now, knows he's part of the pack. Still, he's only human.

Scott starts it off, holding out a messily wrapped box, and then Allison and Boyd and Isaac jump up and start digging around for presents as well, and Stiles has to bluster his way through the unexpected wave of emotion. "Really? For me? You shouldn't have."

All the teenagers crowd around, and Derek is standing off to the side, leaning against the wall. He's not quite lurking. Observing, maybe, as Stiles opens up present after present. The gifts are a weird mix of nerdy and violent. The tasteful gift bag from Allison holds a wickedly jagged knife with silver runes on the handle; the present from Scott (and who taught him to wrap presents, a rabid badger? Seriously, the kid is bad at it) is a graphic novel; the box in Snoopy wrapping paper from Isaac turns out to be a bright red hoodie. "To replace the one I destroyed that one time," Isaac says, but he glances at Lydia when he says it and Stiles thinks maybe he's in on the Little Red Riding Hood joke.

The two most normal presents are from Danny and Rachel: a ticket to the drag costume ball in August that Stiles had been pining to attend but didn't think he could afford, and a gift certificate to the used bookstore where she works, respectively. Stiles thinks the pentacle pendant from Lydia ("Look, it has a little compartment where you can keep wolfsbane for emergencies," she says, but he suspects she just thinks its hilarious to dress him like a tacky Wiccan) is the last of them, but then Derek is peeling himself off the wall and reaching forward, and there's another small, slim box wrapped in brown paper.

Stiles has the sudden strange urge to keep this present for himself, to wait to unwrap it until he's alone, but everyone is watching so he slides a thumbnail underneath the tape. Inside is what almost looks like a necklace box, all compact and formal, but then he lifts the lid and there's… a stick?

"Is that seriously a magic wand?" Isaac asks, laughter in his voice.

"No," Stiles says slowly. "Its more like… a pen." Because it is, kind of, it's sort of like a quill pen, and of course it's for magic, he's seen the one Deaton uses for the spells that have to be written down, which is like 80% of them, and this is a really nice one. It's made of very smooth, very dark wood, and he can read the runes that are inlaid in silver up the handle: focus, accuracy, amplification, faith. There's a hollow core, to channel the different kinds of liquids that spells have to be written in, and on the end of it… yep, that's a blade about a centimeter long, for those spells that have to be done up in blood. This is a serious business piece of crafting, the kind of thing that he could end up using his whole life, his whole magical career, however long or short both of those things turn out to be, and Stiles is really fucking touched that Derek got him something this elegant and beautiful and practical all at once. Not least because this means that Derek believes in him, believes that he's _useful_.

He can't manage to say anything for a second, and he doesn't know what the expression on his face looks like, though he wouldn't be surprised if he looks like an idiot because his emotions are everywhere, seriously. Finally he looks up at Derek and says, "Thank you," because that's what you say when someone gives you a present. And then he says "It's exactly-it's perfect. Thanks. You're the best," because he's still Stiles and if he can ruin a moment by talking too much, he will.

Derek looks pleased, though, so he didn't ruin it completely, and then Lydia claps her hands and looks meaningfully at Isaac and somehow a minute later Isaac is setting up the karaoke on the Wii even though none of them are drunk at all.

Lydia tries to get him to sing, gives him her very best hair twirl in fact, but Stiles just scowls and says, "It's my birthday, and that's the opposite of fun, and no," so she sets her sights on Allison instead and it looks like she's going to have better luck there because Allison is grinning like a dork and going to pick out a song. Stiles takes the opportunity to step back from the crowd a little bit and go tuck his presents away in his backpack so he doesn't misplace anything, and when he looks up Derek is sitting on a stool, his elbows on the counter next to the remains of the cake, watching him. He's still not entirely sure why Derek is here. Maybe the answer is as simple as, because the rest of the pack is, but that doesn't explain the perfect-and now that he's had a minute to think about it, extravagantly expensive-present.

Stiles pauses with the pen case still in his hands, then goes over and sits on the stool next to Derek, still holding it. He looks down at his hands when he says, "Thank you, again. I mean it, this is-well, its probably too good for a beginner like me, honestly," and he makes an aborted jerk with his hands, like maybe he wants to return the pen but not really, "and I half feel like I should tell you not to spend so much money on me, which, believe me, is not something I ever expected to be saying to you."

Derek snorts like he can't believe it either, but his response is unexpected. "I didn't pay for it."

Stiles was idly tipping his stool onto two legs, trying to fidget away some of this weird tension, but now he lets it drop back down. He can feel his mouth dropping open with confusion. "What-did you steal it? Please tell me you didn't-this isn't stolen property. The last thing I need is an angry witch on my ass because I'm holding a magical artifact stolen by a werewolf."

Derek's eyebrows crinkle, but he isn't annoyed. In fact-is he laughing? "I didn't steal it, Stiles. Jesus."

"Well. What then?"

Stiles isn't really expecting much of an answer; Derek only answers like a third of his question on a good day. He must be in a good mood, though, because he keeps talking.

"When I lived in New York," he says, "with Laura, I knew a guy. Rory. Not a werewolf. He's human, but he runs a bar and the local pack gathers there sometimes." He pauses. "Rory knows people. He makes connections for people. Gets information, items. I called him up and he put me in touch with a guy."

This might be the most Stiles has ever heard Derek talk about his life before Laura died, and he's both astounded at how much Derek is talking and fascinated. "So, what, Rory owed you a favor or something?"

"No."

Stiles is certain that he's pushed his luck too far and that Derek is finished, that that's all he's getting, so he scrunches up his face in frustration. Apparently Derek has been replaced with an identical but chattier clone, though, because he sighs and starts talking again.

"I told Rory about you. About how you helped kill Peter the first time. About how we couldn't have killed Peter the second time without you to… pull it all together. To do what I couldn't." Derek's voice drops, it's softer and quieter than Stiles has ever heard it. "Rory really liked Laura. He was… glad to hear that the man who killed her was dead."

Stiles' "Oh" feels inadequate. His eyes flick up to Derek's face, but Derek isn't looking at him. His eyes are on the crumbs of cake on the plate in front of him, and Stiles is nearly overwhelmed with the urge to hug him. He thinks that would be weird, though, so he restrains himself, though his jerky twitch might betray the impulse.

The movement makes Derek look at him, anyway. He meets Stiles' eyes briefly, and then his gaze darts down to where Stiles is still holding the pen in its box, and he shifts in his seat. Stiles is shocked to stillness when Derek wraps both his hands around Stiles' hands, long fingers pressing the box tighter into his grip.

"You earned that," he says, and then he's leaning forward way into Stiles' personal space, and resting his forehead briefly against Stiles' forehead. It's a warm, solid pressure, and Derek's exhale whispers down his cheek. Stiles' mind completely whites out, nothing but static shock for the second and a half before Derek shifts back, gets up and walks away.

Stiles is left on his stool, mouth fluttering like a fish out of water, because what. Derek _touched_ him. Without any violence in it at all. Derek-he's pretty sure Derek just _thanked_ him for chopping his last living relative into pieces, which. Like, it makes sense. Sort of. If he squints at it. Its just not what he was expecting.

* * *

Stiles dreams blood dreams again that night, like he does every night. It's a little bit different this time, though. He's not stuck behind Peter's eyes this time, he doesn't keep cutting and cutting until the blood swirls hot around his ankles and everyone he knows is in pieces, staring at him with glassy dead eyes. No, this is more like a true memory, and it begins without any blood at all.

There's a crash from the entrance of the warehouse where the wolves are fighting Peter, and Allison and Lydia are beside him as he lays out the trap. The circle is almost complete, needing only the last couple of inches of ash to become active, and Lydia's eyes are wide and white, but her hands are steady and he knows it's because she believes this is going to work.

The next part happens as quickly as it did in real life:

the snarling tangle of wolves is _right there_ in front of him-

Derek is throwing Peter at the innocuous looking cardboard box that marks the middle of the hidden trap-

Stiles closes his eyes and _pushes_ the last of the ash into place-

Peter snarls and jumps back at Derek and the look on his face when the ash line holds him in is almost comical-

Stiles releases the really impressive twist in the plot, the weighted hemp and wolfsbane net he and Allison slaved over for hours-

It hits Peter and wraps around him, lighting up with these little white crackles and pops of smoke-

Peter is painfully human again and screaming and screaming at the forced change.

This is where the dream splits from reality, though its just as vivid as the parts that really happened. Everyone freezes, and Stiles has time to breathe and look around him at the wolves circling, at Lydia and Allison at his shoulders backing him up. When he looks at Derek, he's shifted back to human, and he looks tired and sad, but he gives Stiles a firm nod, like _this has to be done_. One killer to another, and that thought shouldn't warm the pit of Stiles' stomach, but it does because he's not alone.

And then he has the claw in his fist, and Allison is stepping forward and bracing her spear, and the long knives in Lydia's hands glint in the low light. When the arterial spray finally hits him in the face, and he's breathing in the moist stink of death and the blood is running in thick rivulets down the back of his scalp, it still makes him sick down to his bones. For the first time, though, he knows that he's going to survive.


End file.
